New leader of Vermont group says greatest threat is budget uncertainty

Feb. 28, 2013

Members of the Vermont National Guard listen as Gov. Peter Shumlin and Adjutant General-elect Steve Cray discuss the effects of possible sequestration, including the furloughs of some Guard members, during a news conference at Camp Johnson in Colchester on Thursday. / GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS

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Free Press Staff Writer

MONTPELIER — Some 500 Vermont National Guard employees would see a 20 percent pay cut, along with cuts in equipment and training time.

Local Head Start programs would see a 5.3 percent cut in federal funding and are scrambling for information about whether that means they’ll have to end the school year early, reduce the number of families they serve, furlough employees or what. None of it seems fathomable to those running the programs.

Those who are flying should make sure they get to the airport the suggested two hours before flight time, just in case security lines are backed up because of reduced hours for security workers.

The state Labor Department is trying to figure out how it would handle a 10 percent cut in federal funding while also bracing for an increase in inquiries about unemployment compensation that will come from furloughed federal workers.

Vermont public schools wouldn’t see cuts until next school year, but then would face a 5 percent cut in federal funding, amounting to about $4 million.

Those are some of the effects federal sequestration could have on Vermont if it kicks in today. None of the impact will hit immediately as the calendar flips to March, officials said, but details on exactly how and when the cuts will hit are elusive even to the heads of agencies who’ve been in on meetings with federal officials.

“It’s really unknown exactly how the furloughs would be implemented,” said Brig. Gen. Steve Cray, who today will be sworn in as Vermont’s adjutant general, the same day he could learn whether the federal cuts are real. Cray said he just returned Wednesday night from a meeting in Washington on the topic.

“I can’t tell you at this point in time the impact to specific programs,” said Jim Reardon, the state finance commissioner who oversees the state budget. “I’m not trying to be elusive.”

Vermont is in line to see $15 million in reductions under the plan for across-the-board cuts that many thought would never happen. A White House meeting today could solve the whole thing — or not.

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Marianne Miller, director of the Central Vermont Community Action Council Head Start, said she can’t afford to sit back and hope it all gets resolved, though that is exactly what she hopes happens.

Miller said she’s been trying for weeks to work out scenarios for how she might make up what is now expected to be a 5.3 percent cut to early childhood education programs for low-income families. “Do I close summer services?” Miller said. “Will I have to look at a day, a week of furloughs?”

Closing programs would force parents to leave their jobs, she noted, while furloughs would be devastating to the program’s low-paid employees. She noted that client families will also be feeling the federal cuts in other programs.

Miller said Head Start will not shut down or cut back on programs immediately, but she’s scrambling for information on what the cuts will mean.

“We have received no direction,” Miller said. “It’s just so unimaginable to me that our Congress would not try to avoid these cuts. What is this — the economic armegeddon?”

State Labor Commissioner Annie Noonan said her department is going through similar budget angst as it faces a 10 percent cut in federal funding. She’s trying to figure out if the cuts mean the federal government will cut extended unemployment benefits retroactively, as she heard was a possibility.

“It’s insane,” Noonan said. “I’m hoping to God this doesn’t happen.”

Noonan said 76 percent of the Labor Department’s budget is federal funding. As that funding could be cut, demand for services will rise. Some of the Guard employees and other federally funded workers who are being furloughed could be eligible for unemployment, she said.

Gene Richards, interim director of the Burlington International Airport, said Thursday he has heard little about the specific impact of federal cuts on security personnel at airports. “My understanding is anything they did wouldn’t happen immediately,” but he said he is recommending passengers get to the airport two hours in advance of their flights in case of a backlog at security.

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At the Vermont National Guard, Adjutant General-elect Cray joined Gov. Peter Shumlin for a news conference Thursday morning to discuss the impact of the cuts. Cray said the Guard has informed a little more than 500 employees that they could be furloughed (a temporary layoff) the equivalent of one day a week starting in mid- to late-April. That amounts to a 20 percent pay cut, he said.

The Guard would also have to cut back on flight training hours and equipment, he said.

“Clearly the greatest threat facing our National Guard today is the great uncertainty about our budget and certainly about sequestration and what they might mean to our Guard,” Cray said.

Cray said planning for that is stressful, but he emphasized that his message to the Guard is that it can’t control what goes on in Washington, but can on how members treat each other here.

Capt. Dyana Allen, 31, a five-year employee of the Guard who works in public affairs, said the prospect of a 20 percent pay cut already made her cancel a trip to Las Vegas for a fitness competition. Co-workers are making similar financial decisions, she said.

Cries of complaint about the cuts were both real and politically tinged as some Vermont politicians made sure to place the blame on Republicans in the U.S. House who have not gone along with President Barack Obama’s recommendations.

While at the Vermont National Guard, Shumlin steered clear of specifically blaming “tea party Republicans” as he has in previous remarks, but made clear that he thought Obama was offering a balanced approach. “The president has said very clearly that he is willing to make some really tough choices,” Shumlin said.

“Nobody expected it would come to this,” said David Carle, spokesman for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., “but with the tea party all bets are off.”

In a statement, Leahy said, “Just one day before the sequester is to take effect, our friends on the other side of the aisle, who favor cutting government programs and particularly those that help the neediest, seem to have decided that they’d rather see sequestration take effect rather than close tax loopholes that only benefit the wealthy and pad growing corporate profits.”

In the Vermont House, Republicans, Democrats and Progressives were preparing a resolution they plan to pass today pleading with Washington leaders to come up with a solution, but first they tussled a little over the wording.

House Minority Leader Don Turner, R-Milton, said he wanted to make sure the resolution was directed to all the players in Washington.

“If we can get unanimous support to say, ‘You guys fix this thing,’ I think that’s good,” said House Majority Leader Willem Jewett, D-Ripton.

Legislators who are working on a 2014 state budget said they have not altered their plans to meet the possible federal cuts, but they worry about that furloughs and other cuts will result in fewer revenues coming into the state.